I hear Biden is smashing them all. Oh well, another 4 years of Trump..

Sent from my penis using wankertalk."The Western world is fucking awesome because of mostly white men" - DaveDodo007. "Socialized medicine is just exactly as morally defensible as gassing and cooking Jews" - Seth. Yes, he really did say that.."Seth you are a boon to this community" - Cunt. "My penis is VERY small" - Cunt.

Warren entered the room from behind a large American flag draped in the station. Roving around a circle of people seated in fold-out chairs, she tried to strike a tone equal parts empathy and fury, while avoiding pity. She went full prarie populist, telling people their pain and suffering was caused by predatory pharmaceutical barons.

The 63-year-old fire chief, Wilburn “Tommy” Preece, warned Warren and her team beforehand that the area was “Trump country” and to not necessarily expect a friendly reception. But he also told her that the town would welcome anyone, of any party, who wanted to address the opioid crisis. Preece was the first responder to a reported overdose two years ago only to discover that the victim was his younger brother Timmy, who died.

Preece said after the event that he voted for Trump and that the president has revitalized the area economically. But he gave Warren props for showing up.

Here are a couple articles on one of the less well-known 2020 Dem candidates...

The case for Jay Inslee

Now that Elizabeth Warren has bounced back to third place in the Democratic primary, Washington Gov. Jay Inslee is the 2020 candidate polling at the worst substance-to-popularity ratio. Inslee is at 0.6 percent in the RealClearPolitics average. In a recent New Hampshire poll, he was one of eight Democrats polling at zero.

That’s a shame. Inslee is the only candidate in the race who is treating climate change the way the science says climate change should be treated: not as one issue among many, but as the overriding emergency of our age.

As he told my colleague Dave Roberts, “I believe there is one central, defining, existential-with-a-capital-E threat to the future of the nation: climate change. It is clear that it will only be defeated if the United States shows leadership. And that will only happen if the US president makes it a clear priority — the number one, foremost, paramount goal of the next administration.”

Climate change isn’t a concern Inslee picked up just in time for the 2020 presidential race. In 2009, when he was a member of the House, he co-authored a book with energy expert Bracken Hendricks called Apollo’s Fire: Igniting America’s Clean Energy Economy, and wrote ambitious legislation trying to make his vision reality.

Inslee is a two-term governor of Washington state and the Republican attack line on him has been that the only thing he cares about is climate change. It’s the kind of insult that’s also, sort of, a compliment.

Inslee supported the state’s recent carbon tax ballot initiatives (both failed) and has tried several times to pass carbon pricing bills through the legislature, only to be thwarted. But he kept at it, and this session (finally working with a Democratic majority in both houses), he shepherded through a range of ambitious bills on clean electricity, clean buildings, electric vehicles, banning hydrofluorocarbons, and boosting energy efficiency standards.

Inslee’s single-mindedness, even in the face of past failures, is important. A persistent problem in climate change politics is that Democrats pay lip service to the existential threat but prioritize kitchen table issues with faster political payoff. By the time they turn back to climate, if they turn back to climate, they’ve long since lost the capital necessary for the fight. Inslee made this point in an accurate assessment of Barack Obama’s first term:

The Democratic team said, “We’re going to do health care first.” And so climate didn’t get done. Now, could it have gotten done if it was put first? There are no guarantees in the historical retrospectoscope. But once health care went first, there wasn’t enough juice to get climate through.

We simply cannot have that experience again. So [climate change] can’t be on a laundry list. It can’t be something that candidates check the box on. It has to be a full-blooded effort to mobilize the United States in all capacities.

Inslee is trying to force a conversation Democrats need to have. If the party wins the White House and Congress in 2020, what comes first? Should it be Medicare-for-all, which has dominated the primary so far? Expanding the earned income tax credit, as Kamala Harris has promised? Or climate change, as Inslee insists?

From the beginning, federal climate politics in the US have been dominated by symbolism and signaling. Republicans dismiss climate change or call it a liberal plot. Democrats say, “We believe in science!” Activists argue over long-term targets and who cares most.

With the brief exception of 2009-2010, when the Waxman-Markey climate bill was up for debate, the national focus rarely stays for long on the nuts and bolts of policy itself.

Lately, though, climate change has become, according to a recent CNN poll, the single most important issue to Democratic primary voters. After years and years of stumbling along as a second- or third- (or tenth-) tier concern, it’s finally getting its moment in the spotlight.

The Green New Deal and the grassroots energy behind it have ensured that every one of the Democrats running for president will be forced to prioritize climate change. There’s finally going to be a policy discussion.

All right, we’re transitioning off fossil fuels. How? Where are we starting, how are we sequencing, and what tools are we using?

Most of the candidates are not ready to talk about it. Their hearts are in the right place, for the most part, but they don’t have much depth on the issue and don’t speak on it with much authenticity. Very few national Democrats really do. You don’t have to know much to say, “I believe in science.”

...

All of which brings us to Washington governor and presidential contender Jay Inslee, who on Friday released the first of what he promises will be a series of proposals on climate policy. Together, they will form what he calls his Climate Mission agenda.

It is probably fair to say that Inslee is not a favorite to win the Democratic contest. But if this first salvo is any indication, he is at the very least going to substantially elevate the level of climate policy debate. This is policy made by a team that’s been sweating over the details for years, bringing a level of sophistication and experience that is much needed.

All the policy discussion may all be for naught if Democrats fail to take Inslee’s advice and kill the Senate filibuster. But Democrats need the debate regardless, to be better prepared whenever a window of opportunity opens.

The demagogue is one who preaches doctrines he knows to be untrue to men he knows to be idiots. ―H.L. Mencken

Bad government is the natural product of rule by those who believe government is bad. —Thomas Frank

Nationalism is an infantile disease. It is the measles of mankind. —Einstein
I’m a nationalist. —Trump

The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country. —Hermann Göring

Warren: Fox News is a hate-for-profit racket that gives a megaphone to racists and conspiracists—it’s designed to turn us against each other, risking life and death consequences, to provide cover for the corruption that’s rotting our government and hollowing out our middle class...Hate-for-profit works only if there’s profit, so Fox News balances a mix of bigotry, racism, and outright lies with enough legit journalism to make the claim to advertisers that it’s a reputable news outlet. It’s all about dragging in ad money—big ad money...
But Fox News is struggling as more and more advertisers pull out of their hate-filled space. A Democratic town hall gives the Fox News sales team a way to tell potential sponsors it's safe to buy ads on Fox—no harm to their brand or reputation (spoiler: It’s not).

And the shrewdest thing of all is that SPW ran this play after an exceptionally well-received tour of West Virginia and rural Ohio, in which she walked into rooms full of the people whose concerns FNC allegedly addresses and took every question and every selfie. From Politico:

The 63-year-old fire chief, Wilburn “Tommy” Preece, warned Warren and her team beforehand that the area was “Trump country” and to not necessarily expect a friendly reception. But he also told her that the town would welcome anyone, of any party, who wanted to address the opioid crisis. Preece was the first responder to a reported overdose two years ago only to discover that the victim was his younger brother Timmy, who died. Preece said after the event that he voted for Trump and that the president has revitalized the area economically. But he gave Warren props for showing up. “She done good,” he said. Others agreed.

The demagogue is one who preaches doctrines he knows to be untrue to men he knows to be idiots. ―H.L. Mencken

Bad government is the natural product of rule by those who believe government is bad. —Thomas Frank

Nationalism is an infantile disease. It is the measles of mankind. —Einstein
I’m a nationalist. —Trump

The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country. —Hermann Göring

I’ve made the short trip between the Washington DC airport and the United State Senate more times than I can count — sometimes just barely catching my flight back to Boston, Bailey and Bruce. When traffic isn’t too bad, it’s a beautiful ride past many of the spectacular monuments and landmarks in our nation’s capital, including a clear view of the Pentagon just after you cross into Northern Virginia.

The world’s largest office building, the Pentagon, is a sight to behold. But if you look just across the highway, you’ll see another majestic office building with big, sleek letters plastered across the top: Boeing, the country’s second largest defense contractor.

A short drive closer to the airport, and you’ll see the name of Lockheed Martin — the country’s largest defense contractor — on a different fancy office building. In fact, all five of the nation’s top big defense contractors have offices in Northern Virginia.

It’s no surprise that these companies have clustered around the Pentagon, sometimes within walking distance of the building. That proximity represents an intense coziness between giant defense corporations and our Department of Defense.

There are talented and patriotic Americans who work in the defense industry. And there’s no question that public and private collaboration has helped produce real advances in new technology. But today, the coziness between defense lobbyists, Congress, and the Pentagon — what former President Dwight D. Eisenhower called the military-industrial complex — tilts countless decisions, big and small, away from legitimate national security interests, and toward the desires of giant corporations that thrive off taxpayer dollars.

These giant contractors have deployed an extremely profitable strategy: recruit armies of lobbyists from former Pentagon officials and congressional staffers who stream through the revolving door. Then, get those former officials to use their relationships and access to influence our country’s national security apparatus for one purpose — to secure lucrative contracts and boost profits. In 2018 alone, the top 20 defense contractors hired 645 former senior government officials, top military brass, Members of Congress, and senior legislative staff as lobbyists, board members, or senior executives. 90 percent of these former officials became registered lobbyists.

It’s past time to cut our bloated defense budget. Defense contractor influence is a big part of how we ended up with a Pentagon budget that will cost more this year than Ronald Reagan spent at the height of the Cold War. That’s more than the federal government spends on education, medical research, border security, housing, the FBI, disaster relief, the State Department, foreign aid — everything else in the discretionary budget put together. What’s worse, it’s how we end up spending money on the wrong things — too much investment in the technologies of the past, and not enough focus on the needs of the future.

It’s wrong. It’s wasteful. It’s unsustainable. And it’s bad for our national security. If more money for the Pentagon could solve our security challenges, we would have solved them by now. It is time to identify which programs actually benefit American security in the 21st century, and which programs merely line the pockets of defense contractors — then pull out a sharp knife and make some cuts. And while the defense industry will inevitably have a seat at the table, they shouldn’t get to own the table itself.

We have to call this what it is: corruption, plain and simple.

...

I’ve already introduced the most sweeping and ambitious anti-corruption legislation since Watergate. My proposal would fundamentally change the way Washington does business, taking power in Washington away from the powerful and the well-connected and putting it back in the hands of the American people. But the stakes are higher when it comes to our national security. That’s why today, I introduced the Department of Defense Ethics and Anti-Corruption Act. Here’s my plan:

The demagogue is one who preaches doctrines he knows to be untrue to men he knows to be idiots. ―H.L. Mencken

Bad government is the natural product of rule by those who believe government is bad. —Thomas Frank

Nationalism is an infantile disease. It is the measles of mankind. —Einstein
I’m a nationalist. —Trump

The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country. —Hermann Göring

Eighty-six years ago this month, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt laid out the details of the New Deal in a radio address. President Roosevelt called for sweeping changes to invest in job creation, rebuild infrastructure, and strengthen workers’ rights, saying: “We are working toward a definite goal, which is to prevent the return of conditions which came very close to destroying what we call modern civilization.”

Today, America faces a new threat to our modern civilization: climate change. This challenge also presents an unprecedented economic opportunity, to lead the world in building a clean energy future. Just as it did in the 20th century, America must rise to this 21st century challenge with a bold plan to: create jobs; protect workers’ rights; repower the economy; rebuild our infrastructure; and reinvest in innovation.

Governor Jay Inslee’s Evergreen Economy Plan is a comprehensive vision to build a clean energy economy that will create 8 million good jobs during the next 10 years. The plan catalyzes roughly $9 trillion of investment — with at least $300 billion in average annual federal spending leveraging approximately $600 billion more each year — in American industries and manufacturing, infrastructure, skilled labor, and new technology deployment.

The Evergreen Economy Plan is built on the model that has led Washington state to become the fastest-growing economy in America — making historic investments in clean energy research and deployment, creating good jobs in 21st century manufacturing, building green transportation infrastructure, supporting modern job-training programs, raising wages, and protecting workers’ rights and families.

This plan is the second major policy announcement from Governor Inslee’s Climate Mission agenda, a 10-year national mobilization to defeat climate change and build a just, innovative, and inclusive clean energy future. Inslee’s Climate Mission will put America on a path to achieving net-zero climate pollution before 2045, to meet the clear demands of climate science.

On May 3, Governor Inslee announced his 100% Clean Energy for America Plan, which set 100% clean standards for electricity, new vehicles and new buildings. The Evergreen Economy Plan provides the robust public investments necessary to match these strong standards and meet the goal of 100% clean energy. This plan will create millions of family wage jobs, and place the rights of workers at the center of the American economy once again.

Governor Inslee’s Evergreen Economy Plan is a forward-looking approach that will revitalize America’s economy for the 21st century. This comprehensive suite of 28 policy initiatives will put Americans to work in every community. It is based on an expansive approach to the clean energy economy: It will create jobs for technicians installing solar panels, electricians upgrading buildings, engineers designing smart grid solutions, and pipefitters upgrading water infrastructure. Governor Inslee’s plan includes programs to spur growth and build infrastructure in rural communities — from agricultural innovation to rural electrification. And this plan also includes investments in affordable housing and municipal infrastructure, which will be especially important to revitalizing urban communities and creating jobs across the country.

Inherent throughout Governor Inslee’s Evergreen Economy Plan — and to the entirety of the Climate Mission agenda he has outlined for America — is the urgent need to support frontline, low-income, and Indigenous communities, and communities of color. These communities are being impacted first and worst by the accelerating damages of climate change, and have endured a legacy of air, water, toxics and climate pollution, along with a deficit of public investment and support. Through an assertive agenda of reinvestment that is guided by strong local input, Governor Inslee’s plan seizes the opportunity to build a clean energy economy that provides inclusive prosperity — upon a foundation of economic, environmental, racial and social justice.

And, importantly, the Evergreen Economy Plan includes new protections for American workers to ensure fair wages, safety and organizing rights. After decades of erosion of workers’ rights, America must reset the balance that has disadvantaged working people for too long. The Evergreen Economy Plan creates a foundation of strong unions, fair wages, and good benefits that lifts up every worker at every step of their career, in every corner of the economy. This includes vital support for resource dependent communities and energy workers who are today experiencing disruption in their lives as the world transitions toward more sustainable energy systems.

The demagogue is one who preaches doctrines he knows to be untrue to men he knows to be idiots. ―H.L. Mencken

Bad government is the natural product of rule by those who believe government is bad. —Thomas Frank

Nationalism is an infantile disease. It is the measles of mankind. —Einstein
I’m a nationalist. —Trump

The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country. —Hermann Göring